While reading “Thinking like a Mountain” by Aldo Leopold, published in 1986, and “Landscape Use and Movements of Wolves in Relation To Livestock in a Wildland-Agriculture Matrix” by Chavez and Gese which was a piece from The Journal of Wildlife Management, published in 2006, I have become interested in investigating the question of how wolves interact with livestock. In Leopold’s article he explains how humans are taking away the role of wolves. He explains how when humans hunt animals, they are taking away the wolves role within the environment. His whole article is a personification because he gives the mountain feelings, which we know they do not have feelings. Leopold wants the audience to think and feel how the environment does. In his article he also explains how the wolves interact with the cattle. I am researching how wolves affect the livestock on farms. My second article, by Chavez and Gese, is about expanding the wolf range in Minnesota. Chavez and Gese’s …show more content…
My first article was “Thinking Like a Mountain”, and this article wants the reader to think about how humans are affecting the environment and the wolf population. This article begins with a wolf bawling. Leopold begins his essay this way because it grabs the reader’s attention. This makes the reader want to figure out who or what is bawling and why. At the beginning of this article, it is told in nature’s point of view. As the article continues, the viewpoint changes to his own and he explains his personal view of a young boy hunting deer. He explains how the wolves are becoming endangered because humans are shooting the wolves because they are killing their livestock. Leopold also writes about the cattle farms. He explains how the cowman are taking over the jobs of the wolves by “trimming the herd to fit the range (141).” When Leopold says, “He has not learned to think like a mountain
the idea of the wild and its importance and necessity of human interaction with the wild.
In conclusion Leopold explains the importance of the wolf and its effects on others. In doing this it is clear that each part of the ecosystem plays an important role and the effects that each single organism have on one another are grand. Leopold personifies the mountain so that people can think objectively about the environment and act in a way that doesn’t do harm to it. Humans have become alienated from the rest of nature and Leopold want everybody to understand that we are all part of a big interconnected system. Leopold does not want us parallel his youthful actions by continuing to be ignorant towards the environment and in writing this essay he is able to help educate people.
To analyze a stories efficacy one must first scrutinize an author and their background. Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” was first published in 1927. The book and the author bear indelible similarities. “Hills Like White Elephant’s” is about a couple at odds over the construct of their relationship. They are at a bypass, the man wanting the woman to get an abortion in order to avoid change, the woman wanting to have the baby and accept that life come in stages. Hemingway projects aspects of his life unto the life of this couple. ...
John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, and Aldo Leopold all have moderately different views and ideas about the environment in terms of its worth, purpose, use and protection. At one extensively non-anthropocentric extreme, Muir’s views and ideas placed emphasis on protecting environmental areas as a moral obligation. That is to say, Muir believed that wilderness environments should be used for divine transcendence, spiritual contemplation, as a place for repenting sins and obtaining devotional healing, rather than being used for exploitative materialistic greed and destructive consumption, such as industrialism, mining, and lumbering. At the other extreme, anthropocentric, Pinchot views nature simply as natural resources. In other words, nature is explicitly
Throughout the many essays and articles I’ve read in class, “Shooting An Elephant” happened to be the most intriguing. The beginning of the essay may have lead me to believe that the story would simply be the author telling the story of how he shot an elephant in a foreign country. However, as I read more the issue became apparent. It’s basically as if the issue was shadowed by the author’s own story and to fully understand the issue you would have to actually pay attention to the author’s tone and emotions as well as the way in which he describes his actions. To elaborate, the main point to be taken away from this particular essay revolved around the art of proper decision making. To realize this I had to take note of how the author described
During the turn of the 19th century, a grandiose shift occurred in literature from realism to naturalism form of writing. One of the many authors involved in this movement included Jack London. London developed his short stories collection, Son of the Wolf, around this theme. In a Far Country is a short story in Son of the Wolf collection in which London talks about two lethargy men, Cater Weatherbee and Percy Cuthfert, who come from different realms of life. They are on a journey to the North near the Yukon River in Alaska searching for gold. On their way, they decide to abandon their team and live in a cabin during the Arctic winter. In the beginning, the two men cooperate by staying hygienic and conserving food. But over time they start experiencing a sense of insecurity with each other. They discontinue staying clean, saving food, and keeping order. Overtime they face physical and more importantly emotional breakdown. The disintegration between the two men eventually leads each of them into killing the other over sugar (par. 1-76). By elaborating on the physical and psychological struggle alongside nature’s indifference in the wilderness, London illustrates the superficial cooperation and contention between human beings in a civilization.
Jack London’s use of an animal’s perspective allows the readers to fully understand how the harsh landscapes of the Klondike influenced the individual; this strategy exemplifies the naturalism evident among many of his works. For example, in London’s The Call of the Wild, the environmental conditions that occur shape the main character’s destiny and his inability to control these changes. The protagonist is a dog named Buck who is forced to adapt to the austere conditions of the Yukon after being stolen from his pampered life in civilization and sold to a sled team en route to the Klondike Gold Rush. This journey proves to be extremely difficult when Buck faces several obstacles, such as being beaten with a club and the fierce rivalry between him and the nefarious pack leader Spitz. “Yet, by following his instincts, Buck takes his readers to the deepest reaches of the mind…” (“London, Jack”). He cannot control his fate; ...
Although the entire novel is written with the purpose of eliciting questions at the conclusion, many lessons can be extracted from the entire story. The animals play the roles of humans in organizing overthrows of the human owner of the farm. “Meanwhile the animals had chased Jones and his men out on to the road and slammed the five-barred gate behind them. And so, almost before they knew what was happening, the Rebellion had been successfully carried through: Jones was expelled, and the Manor Farm was theirs.” Although the animals remain free, it does not take long before disparities begin to emerge between different types of animals. Clearly, the novel paints a picture of a society that is divided on the ideologies giving the individuals in positions of power to manipulate the people even
Many talented twentieth century writers have been overshadowed by classical writers such as Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare. Novels dealing with classical topics are often more recognized than works that tackle controversial topics. Aldous Huxley defies this stereotype, for his controversial works gained great fame while influencing many people. Huxley was not just a successful writer; he was a complex person whose ideas and novels influenced many people.
...nowledge of the subject. The article generalized the subject to help the reader understand the concept of animal communication, but also gave specific examples of animals to give readers a sample of the ways of communication.
My pessimism deepened as I listened to my classmates chatter in awe about deer on the hillside and heard our professor mention a toxic waste controversy. One deer stood majestically atop the hill, its dark, shadowy outline nearly transparent in the dense fog, while two others eyed us with less interest than we eyed them. I had seen more deer on a public golf course the day before. One of my classmates began her narrative aloud, adding to the worldly engagements I wished to remove myself from. Moving on, I passed under a stone arch onto a trail where I sat and wrote down my thoughts; drawing ...
Poetry is an effective method to convey empathy to an audience, briefly and directly. Whether it be mood, symbolism, or personification, every poetic device used in literature can be used successfully to move readers and induce feelings of compassion. “Wildlife Management I” by James Galvin and “Traveling through the Dark” by William E. Stafford, are perfect examples of poems rich in pathos. They evoke a higher sense of understanding and connection. What distinguishes “Wildlife Management I” from Stafford’s composition, however, is its highly descriptive setting, dark irony, and tendency to urge the protagonist to make a decision under pressure, making it far more poignant and emotion-generating.
Sudden change is something that is widely feared in today’s society, yet change is also something that is desired for a fulfilling life. For me, there were moments in my life where I felt that I was trapped by my own inaction, and to escape, I needed to free my mind by taking the first initiative towards change. The change would not be made through comfort and safety but through one of the fundamentals of the human spirit: the passion for adventure. From the words of John F. Kennedy, “We do things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” Jon Krakauer’s “Into The Wild” is a story about an ambitious young man named Christopher McCandless who, in an attempt to escape human society, transitioned from his comfortable city life in Virginia to the unforgiving wilderness of the Alaskan frontier. Chris’ unique outlook on life has influenced my desire for meaningful changes in my life.
Same sex marriage, gender inequality, race, and ethnicity discrimination plus many more are just obstacles on the road that one can overcome. If someone tells you, you cannot do something prove them wrong. You can do whatever you want to do and be whatever you want to be. Never let someone else tell you who you can or cannot be or what you can and cannot do. An American transcendentalist, or more known as idealist, who believed in self reliance was Ralph Waldo Emerson, the father of American Literature. Emerson, born on May 25, 1803 in Boston Massachusetts, was known as an intellectual being who wrote great books and speeches with great integrity. He was a man who believed in God and knew that everything was possible if you would go out there and reach your goals. American society is known to bash and discriminate regardless of what you do.
One day my hunting partner and I were heading towards Rio. As a pass time we were sharing each other’s views on hunting. I believed animals had no emotions and were not effected by being hunted by us humans. While Whitey, my partner had different views. He believed animals did have emotions and we needed compassion for them. But, I just thought he was full of it. Until, I was put in a situation where I realized he was right.